When Daddy Comes Home
by Antigone's Sister
Summary: A very young Leia writes a school assignment. Sigh, this didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to...
1. Chapter 1

When Daddy Comes Home

By Viola Player

Today the teacher at school gave us an assignment. We have to hand it in on 4th day, that's in two days. We have to write one page about the happiest day in our _whole_ lives. All the other girls started writing but I didn't know what to write. When the teacher asked me why I wasn't writing I said that I couldn't write because the happiest day in my life hadn't happened yet. She told me that we were only writing what was true because the emperor was really smart and nice and fair and said you weren't allowed to tell lies and that if it hadn't happened yet then it might not happen and then it would be a lie.

I said it would so happen because my mommy said it would and she used to be the queen of Naboo so she was smart, probably even smarter than the emperor, so she'd know.

Except I didn't say she was queen of Naboo because then people would know that I'm not really a princess of Alderaan. And then the bad people that took my real daddy away would come and get me too. And they'd take mommy and daddy Bail and momma Saché away too.

I didn't say the rest of it either.

Maybe I should have. Nobody should tell anybody else what they can't write.

Daddy Bail helped me with my assignment and now it has no spelling mistakes. I wrote about the day me and daddy Bail and momma Saché went riding in a forest park and found baby bunnies.

Here's my _real_ assignment.

The Happiest Day in My Life 

The happiest day in my life will be when daddy comes home. When daddy comes home Luke and me can be together all the time and mommy won't be sad anymore. Mommy and Luke and me and daddy will all go to Naboo to live there and we'll be very happy. On Naboo, Luke and me will make sandcastles and play in the lake in lake country and make cookies all day long. And daddy Bail and momma Saché and Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and Master Obi-Wan and Master Yoda will all come over for Life day every year and we'll have a big party. And mommy says that the Masters and daddy will show Luke and me how to use the Force because we'll be allowed to use it there because we won't be hiding from the bad men because daddy will tell them all to GO AWAY!


	2. Chapter 2

I seem to have forgotten a disclaimer the first time around, so: These characters do not belong to me and I am not making any money off this. I think that covers it.

9 years later...

After an arrest of an official of the Rebuplic, it was common practice for someone to go through any and all of their personal documents that might be found, in hopes of unearthing any other traitors. Usually it was done before the execution, so as to be able to question the prisoner about any suspicious material discovered.

The girl being killed today, who had replaced her recently-executed father as Senator for her home-planer, was not given that luxury. It was her bad luck to be taken into custody the day before the celebrations for the 15th anniversary of the Republic. The emperor wanted to have a grand execution. He had originally planned for the victim to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was captured a month prior to the event. Unfortunately, the former Jedi had made an escape attempt in the interlude before his impending execution, and was killed by a storm-trooper in the resulting pandemonium. So this new Senator would have to do.

The fifteen-year-old had walked to her death calmly. When asked if she had any last words, everyone expected her to attempt to make a rebellious speech. She did not. She closed her lips tightly, and shook her head. But as the axe descended (the crowd loved gore, and the empire loved to give it too them), she suddenly looked up, straight into the VIP booth that sat the Emperor, Darth Vader, and all the Grand Moffs, and said:

"There's only one of us left now, daddy. Only one last chan–"

Her words were cut short by death.

And so it was that Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, decided to investigate the matter himself. He had all her possessions sent to his room that same day, while her body lay mangled in the courtyard, a warning to the rebellion.

He did not have long to look. The third item he picked up was a battered datapad, painted pink with flowers. A little girl's diary.

When he pressed the on key, the pad flashed on, the entry for the 2nd day of the 4th month of the 6th year of the Empire on the screen.

He read.

And he never knew till much later, after he had been discharged from the Imperial Hospital, that while he read, a short, blond, blue-eyed boy, only fifteen years old, had been shot down by a clone while he wept by the remains of what had once been his twin sister.

Darth Vader had come home to an empty house.


End file.
